Carmela Soprano
[played by Edie Falco, pictures]: “He's a good man. He's a good father.”
Dr. Krakower [played
by Sully Boyar]: “You tell me he's a depressed criminal, prone to anger,
serially unfaithful. Is that your definition of a good man?... You must trust
your initial impulse and consider leaving him. You'll never be able to feel
good about yourself. You'll never be able to quell the feelings of guilt and
shame that you talked about, so long as you're his accomplice.”
Carmela:
“You're wrong about the accomplice part, though.”
Dr. Krakower:
“You sure?”
Carmela:
“All I did was make sure he's got clean clothes in his closet and dinner on his
table.”
Dr. Krakower:
“So ‘enable’ would be a more accurate job description for what you do than ‘accomplice.’
My apologies... Take only the children—what's left of them - and go.”
Carmela:
“My priest said I should work with him, help him to become a better man.”
Dr. Krakower:
“How's that going?”— The Sopranos,
Season 3, Episode 7, “Second Opinion,” original air date Apr. 8, 2001,
teleplay by Lawrence Konner, directed by Timothy Van Patten
I have not yet seen The
Many Saints of Newark and am not sure when I will. But it is hard for me to
imagine the prequel to The Sopranos matching the original in quality. The
above dialogue, in its emotional anguish and clear-headed moral insight, illustrates why.
The aging Dr. Krakower is
one of the few mental-health professionals who recognize early on that it is
not possible—certainly not at this stage—to “work with” Tony.
Carmela is right
in only the most limited sense: her husband is capable of love, both towards
herself and their children. But that only proves that he is human, not that he
can be changed.
Dispensing with the jargon
of the latest edition of The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental
Disorders, Dr. Krakower speaks in old-fashioned terms about guilt, shame, and, without explicitly using the words, “fidelity,” “responsibility”
and “complicity.”
He does not say what viewers
increasingly recognize as the series goes on: that, for all her anger at her
husband, Carmela will not make the irrevocable decision to leave her husband
because, with her beautiful house and the implicit power he gives her to harm
others to cross her, she benefits materially from her association with him.
"Blood money," the phrase that the psychiatrist uses to explain that advantage—as well as his own refusal to accept her money from this session—inverts the label used by the faith Carmela cites as her thin fig-leaf for sticking with Tony.
There are no monsters as
frightening as those that exist in our reality. This Halloween weekend, with geysers of blood spurting on TV sets and across screens, it is
worth bearing in mind that Tony Soprano and his kind walk among us.
They might not have been
concocted from the lab of a mad scientist, but—through whatever combination of
genetics, culture or personality experience—they have become sociopaths, with
enormous potential to spread their infection throughout society. (To see the characteristics of this type and how Tony fits it, turn to Alex Li San's 2020 post from Medium, “Are You a Psychopath?”)
In fact, Tony’s
longtime therapist, Dr. Jennifer Melfi, finally breaks with him when she
realizes he not only fits the definition of “sociopath” but also that his very
sessions with her have—to borrow Krakower’s term—“enabled” her client.
As a mobster, Tony can
wield power unavailable to Dracula, Frankenstein or the Wolf Man: he can direct
the resources of a criminal enterprise as far-reaching and populated as any
business to affect how people work and even whether they live. But his status
only makes him the ultimate example of a particular form of sickness.
Consider that description
by Dr. Krakower: “depressed criminal, prone to anger, serially unfaithful.”
That describes a brand of toxic masculinity found far more often than just in
the netherworld of organized crime. It is also shorthand for the domestic abusers
in every socioeconomic niche in American culture.
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